


muenster in my head

by chickenshithypocrite



Category: Rent - Larson
Genre: Cats, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Pets, Recovery, Slice of Life, adopting a new pet, but at least it's a big apartment amirite??, mark and roger are outnumbered by small furry animals, this is an inadvisable number of pets to have in one apartment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-05 21:42:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17926874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chickenshithypocrite/pseuds/chickenshithypocrite
Summary: “We have three fucking cats, Mark.”





	muenster in my head

**Author's Note:**

> this is just a little thing i wrote on tumblr a few months ago, to illustrate my headcanons about the Loft Cats (they have their own tag on my blog but it's not very full. i should rectify that.) anyway i love these nerds and i love cats and i love these nerds loving cats, so. here you go. completely self indulgent fluff.
> 
> the title comes from a poem i read once about an addict about the constant lurking temptation of relapse. i thought the play on words was cute, and the subject matter appropriate.

“Mark,” Roger says sharply, warningly, but Mark doesn’t know what expression is on his face because he’s studiously avoiding looking at him. “What the fuck is that?”

Mark clears his throat and continues stroking his fingers through long, cream-colored belly fur. The monstrosity below him is rumbling so loudly that he half expects Mimi to come flying up the stairs demanding to know when they got an air conditioning unit, and why the hell aren’t they sharing it with her.

“His name is Muenster,” he supplies. If he’s casual enough about it, he tells himself with very little conviction, then Roger might just let it go.

“Monster,” Roger repeats. The disbelief is literally vibrating off of him. Mark feels like he always did at Roger’s shows, standing near the front of the crowd with his camera, feeling the heat and the sound pour off the stage in waves that nearly had him staggering backwards. He chances a glance upwards to offer Roger a sweet smile, the disarming kind that Benny had always envied back when they’d taken that one sales seminar together in their second semester at Brown.

Judging by the depth of the scowl on Roger’s face, it wasn’t having the desired effect.

“We have three fucking cats, Mark.”

“I know!” He raises his hands in a helpless gesture, pleading, “I know, but I found him in a Dumpster, Rog, I couldn’t leave him!”

“Then give it to Maureen!”

Roger threw out his arms in exasperation. Despite himself, Mark found his eyes flashing over the clusters of pocked, purple scars gathered in the creases of Roger’s elbows and trailing down toward his wrists, following the veins. It’s only been a few months. A week and a half since he’d come back from the facility Collins had recommended, shoulders hunched and voice gravelly with disuse. Mark hadn’t wanted to stress him out so soon after everything but this hadn’t exactly been planned - acts of kindness rarely were, right? Benevolence? Mark was just doing the right thing. 

He wasn’t lying, and Roger was full of shit if he really thought he wouldn’t have done the same, if it were him. He  _couldn’t_  just leave some poor, matted animal on the street, wailing with hunger, picking through trash. He couldn’t just turn his face away and keep walking. He couldn’t just  _forget_  about it.

Mark had had an obscenely hard time adjusting to city life at first, in large part because he kept giving all of the cash in his wallet to people begging on street corners. It had taken a four-man intervention - Collins, Roger, Benny, and Maureen - to sit him down and make him understand that sometimes, he had to remember to feed himself. And nowadays, Mark hardly ever had even a dollar to spare. Which, frankly, made him feel like shit.

He can’t give every person in need a roof or a square meal, but the gigantic orange tabby currently wriggling on the floor in front of him, impatiently demanding more pets, has already inhaled four slices of deli meat, and Mark would rather have a little less to fill his own sandwiches than toss and turn every night for the next two months, wondering what happened to that damn cat in the alley.

“I actually already took him over to Joanne’s,” Mark admits, giving his hand back and biting back a grin of amusement as the cat sat up like a bolt and aggressively rubbed it’s cheeks against his fingers. From the corner of his eye, he sees Allie peeking around the corner of the couch, tail doubtlessly fluffed out like a feather boa. “She gave me some cash and a ride to the vet that they take Jaeger to which, mind you, is not so cheap, but it seems like this little guy got lucky. They just gave him a bath and a worm pill. He doesn’t even have fleas.”

“He’d better fucking not,” Roger huffed. Mark could tell from his tone alone that he was beginning to deflate, and fought not to do a victory dance. He knew Roger would come around. He was even more of a sucker than Mark. “I’m vetoing this if he starts any shit with the little one.”

The little one was April’s cat, Pumpkin, and Mark shook his head without a second thought. “No - I mean, no, I don’t think he will. Look at him.”

The floorboards creaked as Roger did, against his better judgement, lean forward and peer over Mark’s shoulder to get a better look at the new addition to their family of strays. Muenster was big but currently too-thin, bony beneath the pounds of freshly-washed, silky fur hanging off of him and spreading across the floor in a splash of autumn color. Mark waited in anticipation.

Sure enough, a moment passed and Roger lost the will to fight temptation. He fell to his knees with a  _thunk_  and, still frowning in Mark’s direction - all for show, Mark thought smugly, drawing his hand back and scooting back to make room - reached out to touch the fluff on Muenster’s broad chest.

Muenster’s liquid caramel eyes popped open and zeroed in on Roger’s. “MrrrrrRRRR?” he yowled.

“Fuck,” Roger grumbled, fingers spreading out and threading through the fur as the cat beneath him writhed, delighted at the attention of yet another set of hands. “You’re so cute. God fucking damn it. Yeah, you’re a handsome little fucker and you know it, don’t you?”

Mark held up his hands to stifle his grin, knowing it was futile, knowing Roger was a fucking goner. It busted out from his chest and turned into laughter when Roger turned towards him, no longer incredulous, just incensed. Don’t be smug, he told himself, even as a smirk unfurled across his face.

“You seriously named him Monster?”

“Muenster,” Mark said, totally-not-defensively, “Like the cheese?” Fuck Roger, he thought it was clever.

Roger looked decidedly unimpressed. Allie had crept out from behind the couch and was standing stock-still, legs spread in a battle stance, tail still flared, now with Socks beside her like a general, looking more curious than combative. Mark refrained from pointing it out.

“How about…” Roger looked around the room for inspiration, which was perhaps a bad idea. The loft had seen better days. With everything going on - April, Roger’s withdrawal, Roger’s two-week stint at rehab that had left Mark living the bachelor life and hating every godforsaken second of it so much that he’d gotten a second job, and Maureen moving out out of the blue a month ago - the place was a wreck, piles of dirty laundry and magazines everywhere, bottle caps and empty lighters littering every flat surface, mugs still half-full of cold tea and coffee sludge hiding behind bottles of cheap lotion and jar candles. Mark had always been a tidy person before coming to live here - Benny could attest - so part of him was in a constant state of shock, which, he reasoned, was probably the same part that would have had the motivation to clean, had he not let things get so bad. 

Roger tapped the fingers on his unoccupied hand against the floor in agitation the way he usually did with his pen, when he was stuck on a lyric. Mark knew better than to disturb him. A moment later, he hummed and tilted his head toward Mark hesitantly - but the glint in his eye was challenging.

“How about Ziggy?”

Mark groaned before he could stop himself. “No.”

Roger sat up and withdrew his hand. The great orange monster made an indignant mrow-ing sound. “We could call him Andy Warhol.”

“We will not,” Mark said firmly, clamping down on the urge to giggle at the thought of introducing their friends to the cat like that.  _And this is Andy,_  he’d say to Joanne, who would stand there bemusedly while her girlfriend dived to the floor to pet the beast.  _Andy Warhol. I think you’ve met?”_

“Okay, fine. Bernie.” When Mark only squinted at him, Roger rolled his eyes. “Bridget Loves Bernie?”

“You don’t even like that show,” Mark protested, reaching down to replace Roger’s hand. Muenster - Mark had decided that that was his name, no matter what Roger called him - purred his thanks. “You just like the controversy.”

“Art is supposed to be controversial.” Roger sniffed. He’s about five seconds away from deepening his voice and doing his best Collins impression, and Mark has to find a way to stop him immediately. “Besides, I don’t see you coming up with anything better.”

“We could call him Cheddar,” Mark offers offhandedly. “If Muenster is too sophisticated for you.”

“Muenster sounds pretentious,” Roger argues, waving his hands as if to bat Mark’s suggestions away from him. Mark sticks out his tongue and bats Roger’s hand out of the air in retaliation. “Benny doesn’t live here anymore, we don’t have to impress him.”

“We never tried to impress him,” Mark said, sighing. He wonders how long he can keep Roger talking. This is the longest he thinks he’s seen Roger willingly out of his room in months; hell, this is the longest conversation he thinks he’s had with him since before April’s funeral. (Roger hadn’t gone, had stayed shut up in their bathroom, puking his guts up, shivering violently, wanting to follow her, wanting to wake up from the nightmare his life had become.) “You named the last one, I thought it was my turn.”

“No, I  _re_ -named him. I wasn’t going to go around calling a cat Master Coffin, that’s too kinky.” Roger turns toward the couch and rubs his fingers together enticingly where both of the other cats can see them. “C’mere, you little asshole. He’s not going to hurt you.”

Socks’ little gray eyes darted about, from Roger’s fingers to Allie beside him, to Mark, to Muenster, and then back to Roger. He’d been Benny’s cat once upon a time, but he’d always preferred Roger, and Roger had always been unbearably smug about it. Mark’s ears were ringing just remembering the petty squabbles he’d had to deescalate twice a week over the cat’s name. He hopes that’s not what he’s signing on for right now.

After an uncertain moment, though, he darted forward and sniffed Roger’s fingers. Then glided his chin across them delicately. Roger scooped him up into his lap and he went limp as a rag, content. Mark pretended not to be jealous.

“I don’t think Benny meant it in a kinky way,” Mark snorted. Roger made a disgusted face.

“I don’t think Benny ever means anything in a kinky way.”

Mark snorted and covered his mouth, again, unable to keep the grin from rising to his face. He should probably just accept that it wasn’t going away and that he’d just have to sit and take whatever taunting Roger gave him about it. He felt good. He had a new pet, Roger was home, Roger was talking, even, and Mark hadn’t felt so awake in weeks, maybe even months. Maybe Roger wasn’t the only one who needed a little taking care of.

“How about we agree to disagree,” Mark suggested, gesturing towards Muenster. “You call him what you want, I’ll call him what I want.” 

In reality there was never another option, and he suspected that Roger knew that, from the faint smile lingering at the corners of his lips. It was cracked but genuine, persisting, even despite the black pit he’d only just managed to drag himself out of - a pit that he dug, maybe, but eventually it had started digging itself. Eventually, it had gotten so deep that Mark wasn’t tall enough to jump down and drag Roger out, draped over his back. Something had to change. 

And change it had.

Mark tries not to think about things like that too often, though, because he’s got a lot of shit to do, and very little room in his schedule for an existential crisis.

Roger strokes the top of Muenster’s head with one calloused thumb, his other hand rubbing at Socks’ flank, still draped over his lap. He looks so fucking young right now. Relaxed, maybe even happy.

Mark does not regret bringing home another cat. If it puts a smile like that on Roger’s face, then it’s worth a few extra bucks in cat food a week.

Roger ceases pretending to be miffed and shrugs, flashing Mark a smirk.

“I hope you know that  _you’re_  on litter duty from now on. I don’t even want to know what kind of dumps this guy takes.”

Mark flops forward onto his stomach on the floor and stretches out beside the cat in question, shoulders shaking with laughter. Pumpkin comes flying out from the hall to press her wet little nose into his hair, grooming him anxiously. He wishes he could see this from above - the six of them, all gathered around the center of the living room.

“Alright, that’s fair.”

**Author's Note:**

> i googled and found the poem i mentioned above pretty easily, you can read it here:  
> http://addictionz.com/addiction-poems/


End file.
